Mossad chief: Obama’s perceived military "softness" weakens Israel

In a rare public expression of concern, Meir Dagan, head of Israel’s Mossad external security service, warned Tuesday, June 1, that the progressive decline of American strength over the past decade and the perception of the Obama administration as “soft on military options for solving disputes” have cut deep into Israel’s military and diplomatic maneuverability and made it fair game for its enemies. This is reported by debkafile’s intelligence and political sources.

Dagan presented the Knesset foreign affairs and security committee with this evaluation 24 hours after Israeli Navy boarding parties prevented vessels sailing the Mediterranean from achieving their object of breaking the Gaza blockade. As the UN Security Council’s condemned the loss of life in that raid, the Mossad chief said Barack Obama’s first year as president was a period of “devaluation” for “Israeli and American strategic assets.”

Dagan’s uncharacteristic bluntness was a measure of the anxiety gripping Israel’s security leaders over the slump in US-Israel relations.

He timed his cutting observations for the day Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was to have held talks in White House with President Obama. Although that meeting was cancelled and Netanyahu cut short his trip to return home and deal with the crisis over the flotilla incident, the Mossad Director decided that what he had to say was important enough to be said and aired without delay.